Of all the noteworthy pioneers who operated in and around San Bernardino during the Mormon period, few accomplished more for the benefit of the area than Sheldon Stoddard.

Born just outside of Toronto, Canada, in 1830, Sheldon was one of four boys raised by Nathaniel and Jane Stoddard. Soon after his father died eight years later, his mother, Jane, gathered the young lad and his three brothers, Arvin, Albert, and Rufus, and crossed the United States border. After a brief stop in Ohio, they continued on to Warsaw, Ill. While there, the family made the religious conversion to Mormonism. And when the church made its great trek to Salt Lake in 1847, the Stoddards hooked on.

Leaving Salt Lake in 1849, Sheldon joined 30 other men bound for the Mother Lode country in Northern California. After traveling for a while with a larger company who hired Capt. Jefferson Hunt to guide them to Los Angeles over the old Spanish Trail, they left the caravan near Mountain Meadows. Turning west at what was thought to be a short cut to the gold fields, Stoddard and company blindly followed a bogus trail for the next 17 days without a guide, compass or map.

On the 18th day, hopelessly lost and facing death without water, their lives were miraculously spared when a sudden rain squall drenched the area. As Sheldon recalled years later, “We caught the water by spreading out our rubber blankets on the ground and drank it with a spoon.”

The men then turned east at the Muddy River and carefully traced it south until meeting up with Hunt’s company. This time they wisely followed their experienced leader up the Mojave River, through the rugged Cajon Pass, and on to the Chino Rancho.

Ironically, on this same trip, another group of would-be miners left Hunt’s command at Provo, Utah, insisting they also knew a shorter route to the gold fields. This group, however, tragically blundered into what is now called Death Valley, where five men died before the survivors made it to Los Angeles.

From Chino, the Hunt party went on to Mariposa where they broke up to mine. Meanwhile, Stoddard also ran a trading post in nearby Carson Valley for a few months before returning to Salt Lake with a herd of horses and mules.

In March of 1851, Sheldon married Jane Hunt, a daughter of Capt. Hunt, and the following month the newlyweds joined with the first group of Mormon colonists to the San Bernardino Valley. The 150-wagon caravan arrived at Sycamore Grove, near today’s Glen Helen Park, in June, where the exhausted party set up a temporary camp.

After the Mormons purchased the Rancho San Bernardino from the Lugo family that September and moved into the valley, Sheldon built the first log cabin in the settlement on First Street, now Rialto Avenue, west of Far West Street, now I Street. His cabin was later moved to the west side of the stockade constructed on the present courthouse site as protection against a rumored Indian uprising.

For years, Stoddard engaged in freighting and carrying mail between San Bernardino and Salt Lake City. In fact, the hardworking adventurer delivered mail across the desolate and often ruthless Mojave Desert 24 times, his last trip occurring in 1858. In 1865, Stoddard made a trip to Nevada City, Mont., with a mule team. The trip covered more than 1,300 miles and took six months to complete.

Stoddard continued to haul freight in Southern California until 1882, when he began working for the California Southern Railway, now Burlington-Northern Santa Fe, taking charge of their teaming and quarry work. Still hard at work until well into his 60s, “Uncle Shell,” as he affectionately was called, retired from the rail company in 1899. The tireless pioneer devoted much of his last years enjoying the company of his friends in the San Bernardino Pioneer Society.

When Stoddard died in April 1919 at the ripe old age of 89, The San Bernardino Sun eulogized the man as a “pioneer, hunter, traveler, and splendid citizen,” and mourned his death as a “distinct loss to the entire community …”

Stoddard is buried along with many of his old frontier comrades at Pioneer Cemetery in San Bernardino.

Nicholas R. Cataldo is a local historian. Readers can contact him by e-mail at yankeenut@excite.com.

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